7 ms·
There's no incentive for termites to be good at distinguishing impostors before there are impostors. So they could get away with very bad disguise at first, the
by ajuc 3y ago
There's no incentive for termites to be good at distinguishing impostors before there are impostors. So they could get away with very bad disguise at first, then arms race started.
- HelloNurse 3y agoThere's also the separate evolutionary axis of how the beetle behaves: they learned to seek out termites and collect food from them, exposing themselves to quick lynching if the disguise fails. It's easy to imagine intermediate states where mediocre disguises work some of the time and the beetle is cautious because it occasionally needs to run away.